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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26008555">The Pale Horse</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/My_Alter_Ego/pseuds/My_Alter_Ego'>My_Alter_Ego</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>White Collar</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Always one step behind, Gen, It’s All About The Why, Lack of a Motive, Neal’s POV, serial killings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 04:34:40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>20,057</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26008555</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/My_Alter_Ego/pseuds/My_Alter_Ego</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Neal and Peter are faced with perhaps the most challenging case of their careers. They are trying to find a very puzzling serial killer. His heinous acts all seem random, and this murderer has an agenda they can’t quite figure out. What is so infuriating is his habit of posting stories about his intended victims and their manners of death on the Internet before he carries out his diabolical homicides. This fiction is a psychological thriller with twists and turns that I hope you may enjoy.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Peter Burke &amp; Neal Caffrey</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>69</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is a longer fiction, so if there seems to be some interest by readers, I’ll post more frequently, at least twice a week.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>An Ominous Prologue</em>
</p>
<p><em>I scrutinize this third story with great interest. It contains all the literary components necessary to grab a reader’s attention—a driving theme of retribution, stunning action necessary to move the plot forward, and a captivating antihero who commands respect, perhaps even fear. It is compelling for me, but, undoubtedly, it will be abhorrent to some. However, I am quite impressed by its complexity but not shocked by its intensity. I know that a festering miasma of personal angst has fostered this desperate over-the-top response in direct proportion to the hurt. The anonymous author, not surprisingly, has decided to go big with a scenario spawned by revenge, so it was right and it was just. As was decided a long time ago, it now falls to me to carry on. You see, I am the Pale Horse—Death, as described in Revelations, the last book of the Christian Bible. It is I who must complete the final chapter in this unique tale, a work of fiction that has become very real</em>.</p>
<p>~~~~~~~~~~</p>
<p>The White Collar Office</p>
<p>When I arrive at the FBI office, Peter immediately gives me the two-fingered summons from the upstairs balcony. I’m barely ten minutes late and I’m ready to make up some excuse for my tardiness, but I find Peter isn’t interested. He has already been swallowed up by the conference room, and, like the obedient little CI that I am, I quickly trot up the stairs. As I enter the glassed enclosure, I’m impressed to see the entire contingent of the White Collar team already assembled and looking somberly attentive. There isn’t an available seat in the small room, so I lean against the wall and wait for this big briefing to begin. Surprisingly, both Reese Hughes and Kyle Bancroft are standing, shoulder to shoulder, at the head of the table along with another face who is unfamiliar. Although Bancroft’s authority supersedes Hughes’, he allows the old, usually disgruntled White Collar SAC to inform us about this latest development in an ongoing case that has every department in the FBI putting their heads together.</p>
<p>“Ladies and Gentlemen,” Hughes intones after clearing his throat, “this latest tragedy to unfold happened right here under our noses. This audaciously diabolical murderer is now on our turf, so it’s up to the FBI to run him to ground. In the past, the Bureau was always two steps behind, too slow on the uptake, to prevent these despicable tragedies. But this latest one is on us. We have to vindicate ourselves by apprehending and putting this maniac in a jailcell before he creates any more homicidal mayhem.”</p>
<p>Hughes then goes on to describe in detail the horrific mass murder that took place last evening at nearby Hudson University, an iconic institution of higher learning with an impeccable reputation for turning out learned and bright graduates in every sphere of knowledge. Hudson prided itself on its discriminating acceptance policy. Only the cream of the crop were allowed admission into its hallowed ivied halls, and continued matriculation depended on harried and stressed students constantly striving to reach the top of the curve. But last night’s debacle didn’t have anything to do with the student population. Last night had been all about the faculty.</p>
<p>Dean George Emberton was celebrating the 30<sup>th</sup> anniversary of his investiture as the privileged head of this little entitled fiefdom, and the college was celebrating it in style with an enormous gala in the cavernous auditorium that had been turned into a ballroom-like expanse in honor of the occasion. There was to be a four-course sumptuous dinner as a preamble to the many speeches, sure to be loaded with lofty accolades, commencing after dessert. Unfortunately, the event never reached that august, if boring, landmark.  </p>
<p>The head table, slightly elevated on a platform for optimum exposure to a sea of sycophants, was long and crowded with every department head, their spouses, or their significant others. In all, there were over twenty-six people smiling graciously in their sedate formal attire. Waiters in short white jackets and white gloves hustled about pouring wine for the opening toasts, and Dean Emberton, smartly clad in his tailored tuxedo, finally stood and raised a glass to welcome everybody to the festivities. “Let us raise a glass to the exalted realms that have the awesome responsibility of shaping the minds of a future generation,” he had said with a self-satisfied smile. Then he took a sip of his libation as did other members seated at the coveted table of honor. After that, things happened quickly.</p>
<p>Just barely minutes had passed before, one by one, the chosen people up on stage began to sag and then fall to the carpet in obvious physical distress. Many immediately lost consciousness and began experiencing tonic/clonic seizures, and everyone had bubbling saliva spewing from their mouths mixed with blood and emesis. When paramedics arrived, every afflicted person seemed to have suffered a cardiac arrest that resulted in their deaths.</p>
<p>The crowded ballroom became uncontrolled chaos as tenured professors and other guests were stumbling over each other to make a hasty exit from this horrendous scene. Women shrieked and teetered on their high heels, while their male companions stared in open-mouthed paralyzed astonishment. As the local precinct cops arrived after the flood of 911 calls, they valiantly tried to contain those intimidated spectators still remaining. Only much later would a full list of the attendees be amassed who had come to rub elbows with like-minded individuals of academia, but, instead, had witnessed a mass poisoning by what the coroner theorized was lethal and fast-acting cyanide. The acrid smell of bitter almonds in their vomit helped him make that impromptu diagnosis.</p>
<p>Hughes then began to allude to the ominous conclusion drawn years after the facts had begun to emerge. “As you are all well aware, this hateful, malicious crime is the latest episode in an ongoing saga that has spanned almost a half dozen years and has been played out in other cities along the East Coast. The FBI is involved because this unsub has been deemed a serial killer. I have with me today a representative of the Behavioral Analysis Unit based in Quantico, and although he can’t give you a profile as yet, he can bring everyone up to speed with what his team has in their arsenal thus far.”</p>
<p>I watch a middle-aged balding man in a bland suit step forward and introduce himself. “My name is Special Agent Marvin Kirshner, and I head one of our specialized teams that study and provide informational data to law enforcement around the country regarding a serial killer on the loose. We are a bit late to the party with this particular unsub, just as Agent Hughes has insinuated. We now know that this person has been active for at least half a decade, perhaps longer, while he may have been refining his technique. We determined this quite accidently, I have to say with no small degree of embarrassment. If it wasn’t for some pimply-faced 14-year old adolescent, we wouldn’t have put the pieces together even now.”</p>
<p>Kirshner went on to explain how a timid and worried mother in Alexandria, Virginia had come to call the police with a rather far-fetched but intriguing story just 15 months ago in the fall of 2018. It seemed that late one Saturday night, she had caught her young son so deeply engrossed in something on his laptop, he never detected her presence looking over his shoulder. He appeared to be reading some type of blog, and when the kid’s parent finally browbeat him into a confession, he had admitted that it was a page he had stumbled across on the Dark Web. At first, the woman suspected it may be porn or some other disgusting site pandering to predators or perverts, but when she sat beside him and started reading, her blood ran cold. What she was scanning was like a novel with chapters, and each entry was dated and timestamped going back five years. The latest chapter in this literary effort described, in detail, the planning and implementing of a mass shooting spree in a Georgia Veteran’s Administration building that left fourteen people dead at their desks. The assailant had casually walked away from the carnage and sped off in a generic grey van. Despite a statewide search, he was never apprehended. It had been headline news just one week before.</p>
<p>At first, the cops didn’t give this report much credence. To their jaded minds, this was just some uncouth troll singing the praises of a murderer and embellishing on a terrible, inhumane tragedy. But then some bright bulb twigged onto the fact that the story had been uploaded on the very same day as the shooting, exactly five minutes before the mass carnage took place. Well, that certainly made the detectives sit up and take notice. They then backtracked to the beginning of the sinister story, which initially fleshed out a wronged and rightfully vengeful protagonist turned crusader who was determined to exact justice in an unjust world.</p>
<p>Apparently, this antihero was a proficient jack of all trades. His first act of mayhem was back in 2015 when he infamously hacked into the air traffic control tower at National Airport. He was able to suddenly reduce every vital screen to a blizzard of snow. Little blips that were incoming and outgoing flights became invisible, and an in-air collision by two commercial pilots flying blind caused a terrible loss of life. The FAA did their due diligence but could never figure out how this catastrophic cyber-attack could have gotten past their firewalls and fail safes. The families of the ill-fated passengers were still tied up in lawsuits with the airlines and anyone else who could possibly shoulder the blame for the deaths of their loved ones. The Virginia detectives now knew exactly where to point the finger and that was at the author of the air calamity story, which had been uploaded exactly five minutes before the madness in the control tower occurred.</p>
<p>Moving on to Chapter Two, written in 2017, the reader finds a prestigious branch of a nationally respected brokerage firm in a Maryland suburb designated as the next target. On a beautiful April morning, a Fed Ex truck had delivered its usual immense stack of boxes, most of which contained reams of packaged computer paper. Even in this advanced age of Cloud storage and condensed virtual PDF files, people still love their hard copies. This huge mountain of cartons sat in the hallway of the investment firm awaiting some lowly office boy with his own hand truck to laboriously relocate them to a storeroom. They never made it that far. Exactly 5 minutes after that new chapter in the homicidal novel was posted, a tremendous explosion engulfed the two-story brick building, which turned it into a raging inferno. Brokerage managers and their secretaries were literally incinerated while seated at their desks. The bombs secreted in some of those boxes were all triggered remotely with split-second precision, and the ghoulish author of the tragedy coldly told his readers just how the weapons of slaughter were assembled with pieces of metal shrapnel and the addition of C-4 to get the most bang for the buck. Local bomb experts were called in to try to determine some type of bomber signature, as was the trademark of this breed of killer. Unfortunately, they couldn’t fit him into any neat little niche, and justice for the victims went unanswered.</p>
<p>“So, Ladies and Gentlemen,” Kirshner intoned, “three is the magic number which, in the Bureau’s eyes, constitutes a serial killer. At that point, we were called in to formulate a profile. Last night’s poisoning—a fourth incident—is definitely related because the virtual novel depicted the exact circumstances down to the actual cyanide ingestion, and it was posted on the Dark Web site precisely five minutes before that fateful toast was made by the college dean.</p>
<p>To be honest, I’ll admit that our current theories about the serial killer are very sketchy and hypothetical because the crimes are all diverse, wide-spread geographically, and seem to have no common denominator. There is also a long quiescent or cooling off period between the events. Nevertheless, there is either an agenda in play or a trigger which precedes the actual formulation of another mass killing. What we postulate so far is that this is an organized killer, most of whom have a high IQ upwards of 120. He’s methodical and careful with every detail of his intended crime, which is planned out well in advance, and he leaves no evidence behind to link him to the murders. We’re terming him what we call a 'thrill seeker' killer who is taunting law enforcement with these book chapters to show how much smarter he is than his pursuers. He probably finds it amusing to watch us scurry around in circles after his bedlam unfolds in real life. This killer is somewhat unique, but like others of his ilk, he likes to send messages and keep detailed records because that is his claim to fame. This ludicrous action novel on the Dark Web is his method of captivating his audience and a way to give us the finger.</p>
<p>Our forensics team has been sifting through the chapters of this so-called literary endeavor. We’re parsing every line and looking for a particular syntax usage or the repetition of words or phrases that may be indigenous to a specific area of the country. These crimes all happened in different cities, so the unsub may be a wanderer looking for a fabled Utopia in his addled mind. Some of our experts claim there is a definite lack of cohesive synergy to the various stories, but that could be because, over the course of many years, the author has tried out different writing styles and techniques just to see what he likes best. Nothing is etched in stone at this point. As I said, we really have nothing of substance right now and everything is supposition and up for grabs. Now it’s time for all of you agents to do what you do best. Unearth some new clues, ferret out a shred of tangible evidence, or perhaps just use your gut instincts to dig down deep into this unsub’s permafrost. There’s an answer somewhere in this convoluted puzzle. We can’t assume that this killer will wait another year before he strikes again.”  </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I follow Peter out of the conference room and we settle ourselves in his office. “I just can’t figure out the why,” Peter says with a frustrated air. “There has to be a reason that he chose specific targets to hit. What is the common thread here?”</p>
<p>“Maybe there isn’t one,” I say quietly.</p>
<p>“Well, those behavioral experts claim he probably has a high IQ and is proficient enough to preemptively extol his exploits in a novel, so he can’t be some illiterate, wandering lost soul just looking to get attention by killing someone whenever the spirit moves him. He’s thought this through and there must be an endgame somewhere,” Peter rationalizes. Then he stares at me before adding, “You always had an agenda when you were committing crimes, Neal. Tell me I’m wrong!”</p>
<p>I merely shrug. I’m not about to clue my handler into the fact that the monetary gains of my exploits were always secondary to a feeling of being invincible and smarter than my pursuers. That gave me a high better than any psychotropic drug on the market. Maybe this killer was simply doing what he was doing because he could. For just a little while, he was God and held someone’s future in his hands. Perhaps he felt compelled to perform his stupendous feats simply because he needed to scratch an itch in a very lethal way.</p>
<p>Peter doesn’t remark on my silence. Instead, he tries to order his thoughts. “It’s going to be a gargantuan effort to zero in on who the actual target could have been,” he muses. “Was it the college institution as a whole, or one particular person who pissed off our killer? Since ERT has told us that only the wine poured at the head table was tainted, we’ll have to assume that whoever the killer was after was seated up there along with every other faculty head. But we’ve got to narrow that down somehow. Let’s start at the top echelon and assume it was Dean Emberton, ‘cause we have to start somewhere.”</p>
<p>I simply nod my head and follow Peter into the bullpen where he begins delegating the task at hand. He tells two probies to start amassing a list of aspiring high school seniors who had applied to Hudson and had been denied the privilege of becoming freshmen. He also wanted them to track down any harassing or disgruntled letters from parents that were sent to the Dean because their budding little Einsteins had been shunned. Then he wanted a list of matriculating college students who couldn’t make the cut and were asked to leave. After the probies’ eyes started to glaze over, Peter moved on to Jones and Diana.</p>
<p>“I want you working in tandem checking out the faculty—obviously not the professors who were poisoned, but go back a few years to spot any bones of contention fulminating outside the classrooms. Talk to people at the school—teaching assistants, janitors, cafeteria staff, whomever you can isolate so they can speak freely. Even educated professors are not above gossip. See if there was any discontent among the rank and file teachers, specifically if Emberton forced anyone out or blocked their bid for tenure.”</p>
<p>“We’re on it,” Peter’s junior agents assured him.</p>
<p>With that job assigned and underway, I followed in Peter’s wake to the forensics lab. We were met by a young scientist in a lab coat leaning over a microscope and making notes on a legal-sized pad. “Agent Burke,” he said with a curt nod, “I heard you were heading up the White Collar task force following on the heels of yesterday’s poisoning. Let me cut right to the chase. We collected every bottle and wine glass from last night’s debacle. Only the half dozen bottles still standing on the head table were tampered with cyanide.”</p>
<p>“So you’re positive that cyanide was the poisoning agent?” Peter asked, just to be clear.</p>
<p>“Absolutely,” the scientist replied. “Mass spectrometry analysis confirms it was an ester of hydrocyanic acid containing the anion CN.”</p>
<p>“Where could the average person obtain this ester?” was Peter’s next question.</p>
<p>“Oh, it’s not hard to find on the Internet, especially on the Dark Web,” was the answer he got. “I don’t want to tell you how to do your job,” the man continued, “but maybe you should concentrate only on the wine poured at the head table. It was different from the vintage served to the masses. The distinguished members who got the tainted stuff imbibed something quite rare and unique—an exquisite taste of very expensive ambrosia before they keeled over and died. The vintage in those bottles wasn’t hard to identify since every label was intact and staring us in the face. It was Château Lafite-Rothschild 2016, and the wholesale price today is way above most people’s pay grade, probably $700-$800 per bottle.”</p>
<p>Peter raised his eyebrows. He was a domestic beer man, through and through, and forking out that kind of money for fermented grape juice seemed obscene. “So how did the wine get tampered with if the waiters didn’t open and pour it until they went up to that head table?”</p>
<p>The forensic expert suppressed a smirk. Apparently he was more of a connoisseur of wine than the Federal Agent standing before him. “Agent Burke,” he said pedantically, “any sommelier worth his credentials will tell you that a really good red like this vintage must have time to breathe. It would have been uncorked much earlier before it was actually decanted.”</p>
<p>Peter narrowed his eyes while I stared at the floor. “Okay, Mr. Sophisticated Palate,” my partner answered mockingly, “did your team happen to find any traces of cyanide in the kitchen?”</p>
<p>The scientist looked unfazed by the sarcasm. “Nope, not a micron to be found. However, we did our fair share of dumpster diving and found the six missing corks in the kitchen trash bins. We looked at each one with an electron microscope and detected a very minute perforation, probably the diameter of a #25 gauge hypodermic needle, in the top of each one that easily could have penetrated both the exterior wax and foil covering as well as the soft cork material below. That’s how the poison was introduced.”</p>
<p>Peter was again thoughtful. “So, instead of the poison being introduced after the bottles were opened in the kitchen, it  was probably added beforehand while they were still sealed. They could have even been delivered that way with nobody noticing anything amiss with the packaging. Do you know where it was purchased? Was it the college that arranged to have it available?”</p>
<p>“I believe that’s part of your job to find out those details because my staff has completed its work,” the contrary man had to get in a last put down. Sometimes he felt that his knowledgeable and hardworking team didn’t get the recognition they deserved, and it was a pet peeve of his when agents became glory hogs and claimed the spotlight acting like they managed to solve crimes all by themselves.</p>
<p>“I think that guy has an attitude,” Peter groused as we made our way back to the bullpen.</p>
<p>“Well, you were pretty gruff—not exactly Mr. Congeniality,” I answer my partner with a grin.</p>
<p>“I’m not here to win a popularity contest,” Peter huffed. “I’m here to do a job. Now we have to find out where that <em>nectar of the gods</em> came from,” he finished with a disdainful snort.</p>
<p>Peter pored over his laptop and made lists of exclusive wine emporiums located in Manhattan. I looked over his shoulder and helpfully narrowed it down to three. When Peter lifted an eyebrow, I answered nonchalantly, “Well, I may be plugged into the finer things in life and where to obtain them.”</p>
<p>Instead of an answer, it was another disgruntled huff from my handler before we were off on what could prove to be a wild goose chase. The first two wine shops were a bust, but the third, a traditional but tastefully understated establishment with <em>Morell &amp; Company</em> stenciled in elegant gold script on the door, proved enlightening. As usual, I felt a heightened sense of awe as I gazed at the graceful wooden racks delicately embracing exquisite vintages that made my taste buds tingle. Peter, however, wasn’t into browsing. He strode purposely up to the manager, flashed his credentials, and demanded to know if the proprietor had any knowledge of a half dozen bottles of Château Lafite-Rothschild from the 2016 harvest.</p>
<p>The delicate man clad in an Armani suit gazed down his nose at Peter wearing his off-the-rack Brooks Brothers attire. “But, of course, I’m quite familiar with that vintage. Are you in the market for a bottle of French wine, maybe not that particular Bordeaux, but there are some other reds from the Medoc region of France which may fall within your price point?”</p>
<p>“Don’t worry about my budget,” Peter seethed at the obvious snub. “I’m only interested in that brand and that year. Did you just happen to sell any recently?” Peter asked in a measured tone.</p>
<p>“It is not a <em>brand</em>, Sir,” Peter’s antagonist answered smoothly. “<em>General Mills</em> is a brand. Château Lafite-Rothschild is an exclusive vintage derived from an auspicious winery that goes back generations to the 11<sup>th</sup> century.”</p>
<p>“Whatever,” Peter said with narrowed eyes. “Just answer the question without all the commentary. Did you sell any of this wine lately?”</p>
<p>“Our establishment prides itself on being well-stocked to meet the demands necessary to satisfy the passions of the most discriminating  of our clients,” was the pompous man’s answer.</p>
<p>“You sidestepped the question, pal,” Peter got into the proprietor’s face. “Did you, or did you not, sell somebody this <em>brand</em> or this <em>vintage </em>in the last few days!” he snarled in exasperation.</p>
<p>“There is no need to get testy,” the other man recoiled. “Civility goes a long way in life and says much about one’s character. So, with that being clarified, let me inform you that our establishment did have two bottles of Lafite-Rothschild 2016 in our cellar. However, since our customer stated that he desired four more bottles, we made some discrete calls to others of our ilk and managed to secure them for our purchaser.”</p>
<p>“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Peter barked, apparently forgetting all about civility. “Next question, Buddy, who was the customer?”</p>
<p>The owner of the gracious little emporium looked like he might balk, but when Peter leaned menacingly over the counter, the little man took a step back. “I don’t even have to check our invoices because the gentleman is one of our treasured regular clients. His name is Alfred Bronfein.”</p>
<p>“Did he pick up the wine himself or did he ask you to deliver it, perhaps to Hudson College?” was Peter’s next question.</p>
<p>“Everything was done by phone. He said that his man would pick it up, and that’s exactly how everything transpired. Was there something wrong with the wine? I’ve read about the ungodly tragedy at Hudson, so are you insinuating that the Lafite-Rothschild played some kind of role?”</p>
<p>“I can’t comment on an ongoing investigation,” Peter informed the clerk. “Now, what did you mean when you said, ‘his man’?”</p>
<p>“Why, his valet, of course. Mr. Bronfein is quite well off, so he has the occasional servant or two. He’s also been under the weather of late, so his hired chauffeur drives him wherever he needs to go and does the occasional errand. I can’t imagine he would be somehow connected to that bit of bad business at the college.”</p>
<p>Peter ignored the guy’s incredulousness. “Anything else about this transaction that you’d like to share?” he asked sharply.</p>
<p>The proprietor sensed that this Federal Agent had a short fuse, so in a guarded tone he added, “Mr. Bronfein asked if I could include a note with the wine. He wanted it to read, ‘Thanks for the memories.’ It reminded me of that old comedian, Bob Hope. He always used to sing that at the end of each of his shows or to the troops abroad when he entertained them in foreign countries. As to the significance in this instance, I suppose you’ll have to ask Mr. Bronfein, himself.”</p>
<p>”Yeah, I’ll do that, but first you’re going to provide me with an address,” Peter challenged in a threatening tone.</p>
<p>The little man before him was so done with this overbearing buffoon, and thus readily provided the information. Anything was better than having an embarrassment in his shop if another well-heeled client happened to walk in and witness this deplorable interrogation.</p>
<p>I hoped Peter would calm down on the ride to the Upper East Side, but when he gazed up at a handsome vintage brownstone facing the street, I had my doubts how subtle or charming he would be. He punched the doorbell with a little too much force and then shifted impatiently from one foot to the next until a woman in maid’s attire opened the door. Her steel gray hair was pulled back severely in a bun and she looked on the far side of fifty.</p>
<p>As before, Peter flashed his FBI badge and demanded to see Alfred Bronfein. The small, compact woman didn’t seem impressed when she informed my partner, in a distinct German accent, that Mr. Bronfein was not at home at the moment.</p>
<p>“When is he expected to return home?” Peter wanted to know.</p>
<p>“I really couldn’t say,” she said firmly.</p>
<p>“Well, can you tell me where he might be ‘at the moment’? Peter retorted.</p>
<p>“I don’t think it is my place to say,” he was challenged defiantly yet again.</p>
<p>“Ma’am, it would be in your best interest to be cooperative. Let’s try this another way. Is your employer still in the city, the state, or perhaps still in this country?”</p>
<p>The maid suddenly straightened her spine and stood as tall as her 5’ frame would allow. “Mr. Bronfein is attending to some business in the city. He most definitely will be available later tonight or tomorrow. Perhaps you could call before arriving unannounced on his doorstep like an itinerant salesman.”</p>
<p>After that strong statement, she shut the door in Peter’s face. Again, as earlier in the wine shop, I was suppressing a smile as I took in Peter’s gobsmacked and frustrated expression. So far, he was 3 and 0 in the civility lineup. There was nothing else to do but return to the Taurus with our tails between our legs.</p>
<p> “I’m really getting tired of being disrespected by a bunch of prima donna snobs,” Peter complained to me as we made our way back to the Bureau.</p>
<p>I grin at my unhappy partner, “Oh, c’mon, Peter, you just have to have a healthy ego and let things slide off your back.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, I guess you’d know all about that!” Peter retorted with a growl.</p>
<p>After a beat, I thought to add, “A bit of gentle finesse might have been helpful.”</p>
<p>“Zip it, Neal!”</p>
<p>Smothering a smile, I turned to stare out my window and simply let his bitterness slide off my back.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>We made a quick pit stop for sandwiches on the way to the office. I was hoping that low blood sugar was the cause of Peter’s antagonism, so maybe eating would be beneficial to his mood. The results were iffy. As soon as we strolled into the 21<sup>st</sup> floor of the FBI building, he made a beeline for Diana’s desk. “Get everything you can on a guy named Alfred Bronfein. He lives in some mansion on the Upper East Side.”</p>
<p>“On it, Boss,” she answered with a salute.</p>
<p>“What do you think that <em>‘Thanks for the memories’</em> note meant?” Peter nailed me with his laser gaze. “Was it a way of saying, fuck you, you’re dead, because I’m a Greek bearing gifts that are going to poison you.”</p>
<p>“I think that would be too neat and tidy,” I answer slowly. “If Bronfein is the serial killer, he didn’t leave any trace of himself at any other of the past crime scenes. Maybe we shouldn’t jump to any conclusions until we find out if Dean Emberton and Bronfein knew each other. If they were acquainted, then we need to determine if there was any bad blood between them. And maybe we shouldn’t assume the Dean was the primary target. Remember, a lot of other professors perished yesterday.”</p>
<p>“So, in a nutshell, we’ve been spinning our wheels all day and we’ve got zip to go on,” Peter mumbles morosely.</p>
<p>“Seems like it,” I agree, because what else was there to say? This day was shaping up to be a marathon with no end in sight. I find myself longing for my quiet, peaceful loft with the iconic view of the New York skyline. Peter, however, can’t seem to sit still. He’s out harassing the probies about the student body, which encompasses the wannabes who never made it into the race and the also-rans who didn’t get to the finish line.</p>
<p>Finally, much later in the afternoon, Diana interrupts the pestering when she hands Peter an abbreviated printout that sort of fleshes out Alfred Bronfein. I read over Peter’s shoulder and learn that the elusive gentleman in question is a 66-year old New Yorker of some wealth. The quick down and dirty profile doesn’t tell us much about how he acquired his fortune, but the brownstone that he calls home has no mortgage and he’s not currently employed. He was originally from Wisconsin and had married way back in his salad days, but the union ended in divorce 35 years ago. There were no children from that brief marriage. Apparently, he now lived alone with only two live-in household staff. He was a great endower of the arts, having donated generously to museums and the symphony. However, in the last few years, he had become something of a recluse and rarely left his home.</p>
<p>“Is there a connection in this man’s past to Dean Emberton or Hudson College? Did Alfred Bronfein endow a wing or something?” Peter says out loud to no one in particular.</p>
<p>After Peter uttered those words, Jones’ head shot up. “Did you just say ‘Bronfein’?”</p>
<p>“Yeah, Alfred Bronfein,” Peter repeated the name. “Is that ringing any bells for you?”</p>
<p>Jones started quickly shuffling through a stack of papers. “Yeah, here it is. I talked with the remaining faculty, who, by the way, are all such emotional wrecks it was hard for them to string two sentences together. I let Diana handle the weepy stuff, and I finally went to the campus archives and started leafing through some old yearbooks and making a note of any professors who had left. Back in his heyday during the early 1980s, an Alfred Bronfein held a position in the English department of Hudson College. He wasn’t a chairman or anything, and none of the secretaries that I asked even remembered him because, apparently, he didn’t last long, maybe just shy of four years. And nobody had any idea why he left or where he went.”</p>
<p>“Aha,” Peter pounced like a cat onto a mouse. “We do know where he is now and that’s something else we have to ask this Bronfein fellow.”</p>
<p>“Peter, it’s after six o’clock,” I whine. “Can’t we do it first thing tomorrow? Elizabeth probably has a meatloaf or a pot roast warming for you in the oven. Don’t make your wife eat alone.”</p>
<p>That managed to push Peter’s guilt button, and he looked sheepish for a second. “Fine, we’ll make another house call first thing tomorrow morning,” he finally agreed.</p>
<p>~~~~~~~~~~</p>
<p>Actually, Peter and I didn’t leave the office the following day at the stroke of 9 am. I killed time while my handler was in a long conference with Hughes, Bancroft, and the Behavioral Analysis dude, Kirshner. When Peter finally was able to break free, it was near eleven.</p>
<p>“How bad was it?” I ask Peter, referring to him being on the hot seat with the big brass.</p>
<p>“They want answers, and, as yet, I couldn’t provide them,” he replies morosely.</p>
<p>“Well, from the information parceled out at yesterday’s briefing, you’re not the first big brain to come up empty handed,” I tried to soften the mood. “And you really just got started 24 hours ago. They should cut you some slack.”</p>
<p>Peter stared straight ahead through the car’s windshield. “Twenty-six people, Neal,” he intoned softly. “Twenty-six persons forfeited their lives and I have to get justice for their inhumane deaths. I thought about it last night when I couldn’t sleep, and I just can’t see a pattern. What do airports, VA hospitals, brokerage houses, and colleges have in common?”</p>
<p>“I guess when we find this killer, we’ll ask him,” I tried to sound positive for my handler’s benefit.</p>
<p>When we reached the Upper East Side of Manhattan, we retraced our steps from the previous day. The door to the brownstone was again opened by the stern-faced maid who looked just as formidable and unpleasant as in our first encounter. “Mr. Bronfein can see you in the parlor,” she enunciated clearly as she turned and walked off leaving us to hurry behind her.</p>
<p>I didn’t have any preconceived idea about this wealthy person I was about to meet, but, I have to say, I was more than a little shocked by the man who slowly stood to greet us. I knew from the Harvard Crew’s digging that he was 66 years old, but the bald, almost emaciated individual with an unhealthy pallor to his complexion, looked much older and frailer.</p>
<p>“Gentleman,” he said warmly, “Marta told me that I missed you yesterday when you stopped by. What can I do for two such important law enforcement representatives?”</p>
<p>“My name is Special Agent Peter Burke of the FBI and this is my consultant, Neal Caffrey,” Peter began.</p>
<p>“A consultant,” Bronfein mused as he gazed at me with interest. “In what capacity do you consult for the imperious FBI, Mr. Caffrey, if you don’t mind me being boldly curious?”</p>
<p>I shrug nonchalantly. “In areas that fall within the parameters of my expertise,” is my non-answer.</p>
<p>“Ah, that sounds mysteriously intriguing,” the old man grins. “I may have to delve into that at a later date.”</p>
<p>Peter is clearing his throat to regain the focus of our visit. “Mr. Bronfein, we’re hoping you can shed some light on a current case we are investigating. Perhaps you can enlighten us regarding a few things. It concerns Hudson College.”</p>
<p>Bronfein shudders as he takes a seat on a couch and sweeps a hand to invite us to do the same on the settee across from him. “Terrible business—I heard it on the news yesterday. How can I possibly help?”</p>
<p>Peter cuts right to the chase. “During our preliminary investigation, we have discovered that you sent some very expensive bottles of wine to the event. Can you tell us why you did that? Were you and Dean Emberton friends?”</p>
<p>“We were once acquainted but that was a long time ago,” Bronfein admitted. “I haven’t spoken to the man in almost three decades.”</p>
<p>“But you went to great expense to provide six bottles of what I’m told was a rare Lafite-Rothschild wine. That seems like a very generous gesture for someone you once knew a long time ago.” Peter was going right to the heart of the matter without any equivocation.</p>
<p>Bronfein smiled a little self-consciously. “I have to admit that I’ve developed epicurean tastes over the years, and I fear I’ve become a somewhat tedious oenophile. I know it sounds pretentious and petty, but perhaps I just wanted to impress Dean Emberton because my circumstances are quite different than when we knew each other in the past.”</p>
<p>“Just how did you come to know each other three decades ago?” Peter was giving Bronfein just enough rope to hang himself.</p>
<p>“I taught English Literature at Hudson when I first came to New York,” Bronfein answered easily. “George had just been named Dean of the college.”</p>
<p>“How close were the two of you back then?” Peter pushed.</p>
<p>“Not very,” Bronfein answered with a shrug. “I only taught for barely four years before I left to do other things.”</p>
<p>Peter already knew this fact, but he couldn’t stop pushing buttons. “Did you leave on good terms?”</p>
<p>“My retirement from teaching just seemed like a natural life progression, and my departure from academia was quite amicable, if that’s what you’re asking,” Bronfein replied evenly. “George and I didn’t keep in touch, not even a Christmas card, so I can’t say we were old friends.”</p>
<p>“But you did send him a note with that wine,” Peter pounced. “<em>Thanks for the memories</em> sounds loaded with innuendo to me.”</p>
<p>The pale man seated across from us sighed heavily. “If you will permit me to be a bit egocentric, I will tell you an abbreviated capsule version of my journey in life. Maybe then my intentions will become clearer.”</p>
<p>Peter leaned back on the sofa, and with a vulpine gaze declared, “Please do share your history and your intentions, Mr. Bronfein.”</p>
<p>Bronfein was up to the task as he stared back. “I grew up in a nondescript little town in the Midwest and attended the local state college where I majored in Literature and obtained my Bachelors. I then earned a Master’s Degree in Rhetoric, Composition, and Creative Writing. I married the girl next door when I landed a teaching position at a community college. It should have been a good, if dull, life. I loved my wife but we had married far too young and we quickly realized we aspired to different heights. She was content to stay put in a comfortable little rut, but I had wanderlust. I was tired of reading mundane term papers by less than talented students who thought they were going to be the next John Steinbeck or Ernest Hemingway with little effort. I was bored and unhappy. I had been an only child born to older parents, and when they passed away I inherited a secure little nest egg that enabled me to spread my wings. After obtaining a very amicable no-fault divorce, my ex-wife and I followed different paths.”</p>
<p>“Is that when you came East, specifically to New York?” Peter encouraged.</p>
<p>“Yes, it was. I was very fortunate to obtain a teaching position at Hudson College after boldly reaching for the brass ring,” Bronfein said with almost a melancholy little smile on his lips.</p>
<p>“But you didn’t stay there long either,” Peter prodded.</p>
<p>“That’s quite true,” the old man agreed. “I think I became jaded when I realized that students with financial means could purchase impressive essays and composition pieces quite readily and submit them as their own. Those clever young plagiarists were more interested in getting an A rather than being inspired to create their own works of great literature. Perhaps my discontent became apparent to the Dean when I stopped bringing an enthusiastic zeal to the classroom. We had a discussion and he suggested that I find another niche.”</p>
<p>“Did that make you angry, Mr. Bronfein?” Peter asked softly.</p>
<p>“Not really, since I knew it was only a matter of time before one of us addressed the issue,” the old man admitted. “However, it was the best thing that could have happened to me because it forced me to think outside the box and seek greener pastures.”</p>
<p>“Those pastures must have been mighty lush if it got you this townhome, servants, and a yen for $800 bottles of wine,” Peter said challengingly.</p>
<p>“I’m afraid you are making snap judgements, Agent Burke,” Bronfein answered mildly. “My transition from a poor mediocre college professor to whatever mogul you envision didn’t happen overnight. I lived in a little walkup apartment in Greenpoint for quite a while, but I was willing to take risks with my substantial savings. Fortunately, I invested heavily in the dot.com industry early in the 1990s and serendipitously got out before the bubble burst in 2000. I then parlayed my windfall into venture capitalism with the emphasis on properties in need of gentrification around the city. I purchased parcels of land that nobody wanted and took advantage of numerous municipal perks to improve the landscape. It paid off handsomely and it enabled me to retire at an early age, relocate Uptown, and drink expensive bottles of wine. Although I don’t have any Lafite-Rothschild left in my cellar, I do have some very impressive reds from the Chateau Petrus Pomerol Collection. Perhaps you may enjoy a taste.”</p>
<p>“I’m on the job, Mr. Bronfein, so maybe another time,” Peter answered in a clipped tone. “But, Sir, something is still puzzling to me. Tell me what the note implied that accompanied your goodwill gesture to Dean Emberton.”</p>
<p>The object of the interrogation sighed. “Although I eventually abandoned my original vocation, I did enjoy being part of academia in an august institution such as Hudson College. Even though it was but a short time in my long lifespan, I remember it fondly as both an honor and a privilege. Not all of my memories were disappointing. But really, it was Dean Emberton who was the catalyst that changed my life for the better, and I owed him a great deal for pushing me out of the nest.”</p>
<p>Now it was time for Peter to play his trump card—a fact that had not been released to the media. “Well, Mr. Bronfein, your expensive thank you gesture had quite lethal ramifications. Those bottles of wine were laced with cyanide and resulted in 26 deaths. You called to purchase the wine last Friday, then had it delivered to your home before it was sent off to the college. Exactly, what were you doing on Friday?”</p>
<p>If it was possible for the wan old man to look even paler, that’s how Bronfein looked—ashen and pallid with a disbelieving look on his face. “Surely you can’t possibly imagine that I would do such a horrible thing,” he sputtered.</p>
<p>“I’m going to ask again,” Peter persisted. “Where were you last Friday?”</p>
<p>“I had an appointment and was tied up for most of the day, but then began feeling a little under the weather so I was certainly not out and about purchasing any poisonous substance!” Bronfein insisted. “I heard about the unfortunate incident on the Monday morning news, but the details were vague, something along the lines of faculty members succumbing to a mysterious sudden illness. I never heard cyanide ingestion being mentioned.”</p>
<p>“For a man who is retired, you seem to have a lot of appointments,” Peter said in rebuttal. “You were out at another appointment when we stopped by yesterday. Care to fill us in on your busy schedule?”</p>
<p>Bronfein stared at Peter for a long moment. “Not that it’s really any of your business, Agent Burke, but I go to the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center several days each week to sit for hours while my chemotherapy infuses. It wreaks havoc on my body and it takes several days to start feeling human again. That’s where I was on Friday as well as yesterday. I hope that satisfies your curiosity.”</p>
<p>Well, that put a quick damper on Peter’s line of inquiry. He and I stood and beat a hasty retreat to regroup. Before we left, we informed our person of interest that we might be back with more questions at a later time. Once we were seated in Peter’s car, I asked the inevitable, “What do you think of his alibi?”</p>
<p>“It would be pointless for him to lie about something like that because the Bureau has ways around patients’ medical confidentiality,” Peter mused. “But it doesn’t entirely rule him out as a suspect. He may have sent the wine for the reason he said, or it could be something more sinister. All we know is, somewhere along the line, poison was instilled into those bottles.”</p>
<p>“So, just like when we started out, we still don’t know the why,” I added unnecessarily.</p>
<p>“And just like you informed me earlier, maybe he’s just doing it because he can. If he found out some years ago that he had an eventual terminal illness, maybe these murders are simply items on a bucket list.”</p>
<p>All I could do was shrug.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“He fits the profile,” Peter insisted when we returned to the Bureau. “He’s intelligent, and, ironically, educated in the discipline of creative writing. That links him to the fabrication of a violent novel on the Dark Web unspooling in real time. But we don’t have enough evidence to get a warrant to seize any computers in his house or search for residual traces of cyanide. If he frequents a hospital, then he would certainly have access to syringes.”</p>
<p>I ponder the problem. “But why would he wait decades to act out a vendetta against someone he claims was not that important to him, someone he had cavalierly relegated to the past? And I just can’t see him being responsible for other seemingly non-related acts like cyber-hacking, mowing down secretaries and administrators in a Veterans Hospital, or blowing up a brokerage house in Maryland. I suppose we could try to run down his whereabout over the course of the last five years, but that may be a stretch.”</p>
<p>“Bronfein is a man of means, so he could have hired others to do his dirty work,” Peter is like a dog with a bone.</p>
<p>“But why, Peter?” I belabor a point. “How do those other crimes make sense in this puzzle?”</p>
<p>“They don’t—yet!” Peter admits.</p>
<p>“Maybe you just don’t like him ‘cause he’s not a beer guy,” I tease. Peter ignores me and goes to annoy his minions in the bullpen. Now they have a two-fold assignment. They need to begin to investigate every person on the catering staff who would have had access to those wine bottles, and Jones and Diana were given the task of finding out every little bit of extraneous information in Bronfein’s past, specifically the last five years. The rest of the day proves unproductive, to say the least.</p>
<p>Later that night, I fill Mozzie in on our new case and Peter’s suspicions. “The Bureau is always ready to jump to conclusions,” my bald friend snorts. “Now, I’m the first to admit that I’m a dedicated conspiracy theorist, but sometimes real life is just real life without any convoluted hidden motives. The Suit may be hellbent on contorting a simple, innocent coincidence to fit his theory. Personally, I don’t think that being a wine enthusiast automatically makes one a murderer. That’s like saying if you magnanimously buy a guy a steak dinner and he chokes on a hunk of filet mignon and dies, it’s the host’s fault.”</p>
<p>“You’re just finding reasons to give Bronfein the benefit of the doubt because he has a cellar full of wine that you’d love to taste,” I say with a quirked eyebrow.</p>
<p>“The gentleman in question seems to have attained heights to which I can only aspire,” Mozzie says dreamily.</p>
<p>Before my cohort in crime can continue, my phone buzzes. I sincerely hope it isn’t a sleep-deprived Peter making new demands on my time. Instead, I discover that the very person we had spoken to earlier in the day was on the line. “Mr. Caffrey,” Bronfein’s faint voice whispers in my ear, “I hope I’m not calling too late. Sometimes, I tend to forget that other people may not be night owls like myself.”</p>
<p>“No, Sir, it’s not too late. How can I help you?” I ask courteously.</p>
<p>“Maybe not help me, exactly,” the old man says slowly. “Perhaps allowing me a bit of your time would be a better way of putting it. Please forgive me for being curiously intrusive, but after you and Agent Burke left today, I did a bit of research on you. That left me with even more questions and I’d love to spend some time with you whenever you can spare a nosy old curmudgeon an hour or two.”</p>
<p>“You did research on me?” I say slowly, not sure what he had managed to find out or how.</p>
<p>“Oh, nothing sinister, I assure you,” I hear him chuckle. “I merely took advantage of Google—a wonderful basic search engine that can provide so much information. It made me aware that you know your wines, so maybe I can tempt you with that Chateau Petrus Pomerol I mentioned during our conversation earlier. Agent Burke didn’t appear the least bit interested, but perhaps you would be. I’m assuming that, at some point, you’re off the clock and can imbibe with me. Would you happen to be free tomorrow evening around 8? No pressure, if that seems out of your comfort zone.”</p>
<p>“I believe I’d love to join you, Mr. Bronfein,” I find myself agreeing without hesitation. If this man claims he thinks I’m intriguing, I can certainly say the same regarding this impromptu overture. When I fill Mozzie in, I see his eyes light up as I mention a bottle of wine that goes for five figures on the retail market.</p>
<p>“Do you think he’d mind if you brought a companion?” he asks hopefully. “I mean, if we’re talking a possibly tainted wine, I could be your official taste tester and perhaps save your life by sacrificing my own.”</p>
<p>“I think that would be a bit redundant, Moz. That modus operandi’s already been done.”</p>
<p>“Are you going to tell the Suit about this out-of-the-blue invitation?” Mozzie wants to know.</p>
<p>“Maybe not yet, at least not until I do a little sleuthing on my own. Winding Peter up at this juncture will just cause contention. He’s not the only one with gut instincts. As a dedicated con man, I cut my teeth learning to read a person’s character, their tells, and maybe even their agendas. I need to satisfy my own curiosity first before I bump it up the food chain.”</p>
<p>“Well, if it all goes to hell in a handbasket, I’m claiming what’s left in your wine cabinet,” Mozzie pouts.</p>
<p>“And I bequeath it to you with only the best of wishes for your continued good health,” I tell my friend with a smile.</p>
<p>~~~~~~~~~~</p>
<p>The following day at the Bureau is still all about research but no leads or hard evidence. Nobody looks good for this horrific crime, not even Bronfein who, apparently, never set foot in either Georgia or Maryland during his lifetime, although he once had a layover at National Airport on his way to a business conference held in a luxurious Caribbean resort. Peter is beyond frustrated and his mood shows it. I keep a low profile and slink away at 6 pm on the dot.</p>
<p>I’m hoping that Peter will be too preoccupied to check my anklet data, so at precisely 8 pm, I present myself for yet a third time at an Uptown brownstone. This time, the door is opened by a fit young man who leads me back to the familiar parlor. I see Alfred Bronfein seated in his previous spot on the sofa and I also spy a silver tray on the coffee table before him. It contains two wine glasses, a wine opener, and, in the center of everything, is that fabled nectar of the gods, Petrus Pomerol. The bottle hasn’t been opened yet; it sits there like a tantalizing siren. If Mozzie was right, it could lure me to my death.</p>
<p>Bronfein looks up and smiles. “So good of you to come, Mr. Caffrey.” Then he turns to the young door opener and declares, “Thank you, Jarrod, I think that will be all for the night.”</p>
<p>I take a seat and remark with a charming smile, “Where’s the lovely, vivacious Marta tonight?”</p>
<p>That makes the old geezer laugh. “Marta is getting on in years and she likes to retire early. I suppose I’ve gotten used to her taciturn and sometimes gruff demeanor which tends to put visitors off. But the woman has a good heart under that fierce façade.”</p>
<p>“I’ll just have to take your word for that,” I say amiably. “Now about this stalking you’ve been doing  …,” I let the end of the sentence dangle.</p>
<p>“My goodness, young man, I wouldn’t call it stalking,” he objects. “Everything I read is out there for anyone to see, but it was barely enough to satisfy my appetite to know more about what’s behind the curtain. I think you are a very intricate and interesting entity, and my life is so very dull and unexciting at the moment that perhaps I want to live vicariously though you and your story. I used the wine as a bribe, I guess you could say.”</p>
<p>“Ah, the Chateau Petrus Pomerol, a 2004, I see,” I answer carefully.</p>
<p>“Yes, and you can also see that it remains unopened and the wrappings are intact, so maybe you could do the honors of uncorking it so that it can begin to breathe,” he says mildly. I am not going to divulge that the forensics specialist claimed those other bottles were tainted with cyanide before they were ever uncorked. However, before I set anything in motion, I ask hesitantly, “Are you sure you want to decant this very expensive Bordeaux?”</p>
<p>Bronfein smiles indulgently. “Mr. Caffrey, may I call you Neal? My days on this earth are numbered, and I’m going to be meeting my maker very soon. If I don’t indulge in my pleasures now, I won’t live long enough to change my mind later. Pancreatic cancer is relentless and it makes you take stock of things and realign your priorities. You can’t always rely of doing things down the road because life’s thoroughfare under your feet is quickly running out and coming to a dead end. If I don’t drink this now, it will go to waste because I have no heirs to enjoy it.”</p>
<p>“Well, then, Sir, I would be honored to join you,” I say quietly as I remove the cork from the neck of the bottle with ease.</p>
<p>“If I’m allowed to use your given name, then please call me Alfred. I’ll grant you that it’s a fuddy-duddy old name, but I had no say in choosing it,” he chuckles. “Now, I really do want to get to know you better because intelligent and opportunistically perceptive young people are extremely interesting with many layers. I actually enjoy the company of the next generation, which everyone has started calling the Millennials. I think a lot of the older denigrators have a mockingly derisive attitude. They call it the ‘Me’ generation, a wave of entitled youth who had everything handed to them without having to work for it. But I disagree, at least about you, Neal. Am I wrong?”</p>
<p>“Maybe you should tell me exactly what you have read so that I can set the record straight,” I toss the ball back in his court.</p>
<p>“Okay,” he readily agrees, “I’ll start with some alleged facts. Then you can, or choose not to, embellish upon them,” the old man says hopefully.</p>
<p>“That sounds easy enough,” I agree. I have plenty of secrets, even from Peter, so some things will always remain a mystery.</p>
<p>“Initially, when you came to pay me a visit, you claimed to be a consultant for the FBI. When I looked up your credentials, it seems like that includes a rather long list of suspected scams, frauds, forgeries, robberies, and even some money laundering. With a resume like that, why would the FBI wish to employ your services?”</p>
<p>I sigh and pull up my left pant leg. “They can do anything they want when they have you on a leash.”</p>
<p>“I knew you’d be intriguing,” Bronfein says with a satisfied smirk. “But to state the obvious, you must be very clever and ingeniously gifted if they wish to pick your brain.”</p>
<p>“I guess you’d have to ask Agent Burke about that,” I shrug.</p>
<p>“Are you just a charlatan with a silver tongue, or, in a different incarnation, are you really talented enough to forge Renaissance masters and fool the experts, as some sources on the Web suggest?”</p>
<p>“I suppose you’d have to ask some experts,” I again sidestep the query.</p>
<p>“Fair enough—I believe I’m being tediously indiscreet,” the old man relents. “Perhaps I’ll ask an easier question. Where did you obtain your education?”</p>
<p>“Maybe I have several advanced college degrees or maybe I never graduated high school,” I answer with a grin. “It all depends on who you ask or what you choose to believe.”</p>
<p>Bronfein looks at me steadily before he makes a request. “Please pour the wine, Neal. It may mellow you out and render you less wary.”</p>
<p>“As long as it doesn’t render me dead, I’m game,” I say earnestly just to keep my inquisitor off balance.</p>
<p>Bronfein favors me with a frown. “Now that was a low blow, my young friend. To allay your fears, I’ll be sure to swirl it around and swallow the first taste to reassure you that no harm will befall you at my hands.”</p>
<p>And that is exactly how it plays out. An hour later, we’re finally looking at the dregs in the bottom of the bottle and I’m feeling relaxed and the sharp edges are now blunted. Bronfein and I have discussed many things not related to my past, except for his rather abrupt inquiry at one point when he asks if I’ve ever been deeply in love. I think of Kate and tell him yes. I am willing to add that she was killed and there has been no other to replace the void she left in my life.</p>
<p>“Young love is pure and sweet and untouched by the harsh realities of life,” Bronfein says softly. “We idealize it and press it between the pages of a beloved book like a sprig of lavender. Just as the fragrance of the flower loses its scent, so does its promise of being everlasting. Perhaps the only enduring form of love is that which a parent has for a child. I was never blessed with an offspring and now I realize how shortsighted that was. I have lived a lonely life and now I will die alone.”</p>
<p>Then the old guy looks embarrassed by that revelation, and turns the conversation in a different direction. “Tell me what things you like to read, Neal.”</p>
<p>“Um, I would have to say my taste in reading material is rather varied and esoteric,” I answer thoughtfully. “I like history, biographies about great men who have made an impact on the world in some way, contemporary action novels, and, of course, books about art and the people who created the traditional masterpieces as well as the adventuresome less conventional works. I appreciate Norman Rockwell as well as artists like Michelangelo and Salvador Dali.”</p>
<p>“Are you basically self-taught?” Bronfein asks softly.</p>
<p>“It isn’t hard to learn something that you have an unquenchable thirst to know,” I admit without answering his question directly.</p>
<p>“You make a fair point, Neal,” the old guy remarks offhandedly as he does his best to smother a yawn. “Maybe, if I haven’t been too much of a bore, we can pick this discussion up another night. Unfortunately, I tend to tire easily. Of course, if you agree to return, I’ll provide another delectable vintage to make it worth your time,” he adds hopefully.</p>
<p>Perhaps because I’m mellow and a bit tipsy, I find myself agreeing. What can it hurt to talk with a sick and lonely old man just waiting to die?</p>
<p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There are many more visits to that brownstone in the weeks that follow, and even cantankerous Marta begins to treat me with a bit more graciousness. Many times it is for dinner to accompany the seemingly never-ending stream of rare and expensive wines. One evening for dessert, Marta serves a luscious strudel with cups of strong coffee and insists that I take a huge wedge of the apple confection home for later. I can only guess that my devastating charm is wearing her down.</p>
<p>Alfred and I are never at a loss for something to discuss after those delectable meals as we relax against the cushions in his parlor. He encourages me to talk about art and then he expounds on literature. Together, we postulate and explore the connection between great art and great literary masterpieces. The man is well-educated and astute with a sharp mind, even though his body is betraying him. It seems like he gets a little smaller and frailer with each passing week, and I wonder if he’s just hanging on until his wine cellar is empty. I have let my guard down a little, and now I’m a bit more hypothetically forthcoming because he’s never judgmental. Alfred has been sharing the role of confidant that only June had previously enjoyed. He’s never patronizing—just fascinatingly interested in me as a person. One night, he actually admits that if I had been his son, my life would have been very different.</p>
<p>I really can’t say why I never informed Peter of these almost clandestine visits to someone who he suspects might be a murderer. Maybe he would have demanded that I put a stop to them and I really don’t want to do that. Even my own parents had never been this interested in who I really was or what I wanted out of life. This man completely focuses on me and what I think. That is a heady experience, and I feel validated and important to someone just because I’m me and not some asset. Not to mention that this learned scholar is broadening my mind in so many ways as I gratefully soak up his knowledge like a sponge.</p>
<p>The clock is winding down on two fronts. After four months with no leads, the ferocious push to catch the serial killer has waned and been reduced to a cold case. The Behavioral Analysis Unit chief has flown away to another city and another set of horrendous circumstances. Maybe the unsub we were seeking will never be run to ground. It’s a fact that some of those guys are never caught, ghouls like Jack the Ripper, The Zodiac Killer, and the Freeway Phantom. Maybe he won’t poke his head up again for another year or two. The FBI is still watching the novel on the Dark Web, but the author is slick and tech-savvy and has made his IP address virtually inaccessible. Peter, of course, was not happy. He liked closure statistics, but we have had to move on and now investigate our fair share of art heists and Ponzi schemes.</p>
<p>The minutes on Alfred’s clock are counting down, as well. He has decided to stop the chemo treatments because what was the use of undergoing more discomfort in order to gain a few more days of agony? Now my visits are meant to be times of comfort spent mostly in silence. Sometimes, he knows I’m sitting beside his bed, and at other times, he never opens his eyes. Morphine shots provided by hospice nurses will do that to you. But then one evening, Jarrod leads me to an entirely new room in the huge house, a study of sorts, with a collection of framed book covers dotting the wall. There are perhaps thirty of them staring back at me, and I recognized the dust jackets of best sellers by a prolific author named Derrick Stevens. Most surprising of all is seeing Alfred in a silk dressing gown seated behind a large mahogany desk. He looks deceptively alert and I suspect he has taken no morphine today for his pain.</p>
<p>“Neal, my boy, look around and tell me if you’ve read any of these novels?”</p>
<p>“I have,” I acknowledge, wondering where this unexpected turn of events is going.</p>
<p>“Be truthful. Did you enjoy them?” he asks softly.</p>
<p>“I did. They were well thought out and the plots cleverly serpentine with unexpected twists. The main characters were fleshed out in detail and appealing even when their Achilles Heels were exposed to the reader,” I tell him.</p>
<p>“That’s good to know,” he responds before he drops his bombshell. “These many works were all penned by a man named Derrick Stevens, but that person is really me. I wrote each labor of love using a pseudonym because who would ever be impressed by a name like Alfred Bronfein? You may or may not have noticed that there was never an author portrait on the dust jackets because I craved anonymity. Instead, I was satisfied with raking in the royalties.”</p>
<p>I must have looked dumbfounded as Alfred continued. “When you and your handler first paid me a visit, I may have embellished a bit on the stock portfolio and the rehab projects. Don’t get me wrong, I did make a fair amount of money when I gave up teaching, but my books were ultimately what made all of this possible,” he finished as he waved a frail hand to encompass the dwelling where he lived.</p>
<p>“But why did you feel it was necessary to hide your identity and bury your great accomplishments behind a façade?” I ask in a bewildered tone.</p>
<p>Alfred smiled. “You of all people should understand, Neal. Haven’t you been hiding your light under a bushel for years? You’ve buried a lot of your own successes away from prying eyes. Personal satisfaction is sometimes enough of a reward. We don’t have to go shouting it from the rooftops in order to justify our self-worth.”</p>
<p>I couldn’t think of a response, so Alfred carefully filled in the blanks. “You are the only person who now shares my secret, Neal. Even my publisher never knew my true identity. Everything was carefully funneled through an intricate system of false corporations, and that’s the route that the royalties followed. Now, I’ve made some adjustments for future payments to go to a charity of my choosing. Derrick Stevens will cease to exist and only his legacy will endure into the future.”</p>
<p>“But surely Marta and Jarrod have seen these book covers,” I say slowly.</p>
<p>“Of course, but they both probably think it’s just another of my eccentric oddities,” Alfred claims. “They know I’m a strange old bird who likes to collect things. Bottles of wine and book covers, interesting young criminals—it’s all the same to them. They don’t have the faintest clue what it all means.”</p>
<p>“But you’re entrusting me with this knowledge, and I don’t know if I should feel honored or hoodwinked,” I tell him truthfully.</p>
<p>“You should feel like I have endowed you not only with knowledge but with trust, as well. And it won’t be the last unexpected burden that I will heap upon your shoulders, my young friend. But I have faith you will do what you think is right when it all unfolds. I’ve decided to time it in a way so I won’t know if you decide to be the custodian of the truth or the whistleblower. Whatever your decision is, thankfully, I won’t be here to pass judgment on your actions. Now, let’s not talk of this again. I believe Marta has opened my last bottle of Chateau Latour and it’s ready to enjoy.</p>
<p>~~~~~~~~~~</p>
<p>When the end came, it was peaceful, or at least as peaceful as the morphine could make it. Marta had called me late on a Saturday afternoon and I hurried to the brownstone. The hospice nurse had done her best and went to wait in the kitchen. For the next hour, Marta, Jarrod, and I sat watching Alfred draw quivering breaths that became slower and shallower as the afternoon sun set outside the arched bedroom windows. Unbelievably, people on the sidewalks beyond were hurrying about their business as a tired old man was finishing his just a few yards away. When the death rattle in Alfred’s chest ceased, I looked up to see Jarrod biting his lip and the usually rigid Marta trying to hold back tears. It was done and my friend had quietly left us behind to mourn.</p>
<p>“Mr. Bronfein showed me his will just last week,” Marta whispered. “He wanted his remains to be cremated and he made all the arrangements with the mortuary. He also told me that Jarrod and I will receive a substantial bequest and that everything else, including this house and its contents, will be sold and the proceeds given to charity. He never stipulated what to do with his ashes, but I intend to keep them with me. I have taken care of him for many years and it only seems right that I should be the one to take care of him after his passing.”</p>
<p>Then she turned to me with her eyes glistening. “I believe he came to have great affection for you in his own way, Mr. Caffrey. Before the appraisers descend on us like locusts, is there anything you’d like to have to remember him?”</p>
<p>I was somewhat taken aback before stammering, “Maybe a few of those framed book jackets that are hanging in his study?”</p>
<p>“Take whichever ones you’d like,” she replied softly. “Jarrod can help you load them into your car.”</p>
<p>And that’s exactly what happened the last time I set foot in Alfred Bronfein’s home, a place that had become an unexpected warm and comfortable haven for me. Our time together as friends, spawned from different generations and backgrounds, had been much too short. Finally, after the hearse had removed the old man’s body, I shook Jarrod’s hand and stooped to plant a kiss on Marta’s cheek. I can’t say that she welcomed that gesture, but rather endured it with German stoicism. I turned to leave, but she stopped me momentarily to place a rectangular box wrapped in brown paper and tied with string into my hands. “Mr. Bronfein said to give this to you after his passing, so I’m carrying out his wishes.”</p>
<p>“What is it?” I asked.</p>
<p>“Mr. Bronfein wrapped it himself so I have no idea,” she shrugged. “He said it was not really a gift for you but rather a quandary. I certainly could never decipher a lot of what he said. I just did as I was told because he was a wonderfully kind employer.”</p>
<p>I went home and carefully ferried the framed book covers up the stairs to my loft. Tomorrow I would store them away in June’s attic—Alfred’s hidden treasures would now become mine. The brown box sat on my dining table because I had an uneasy feeling that I didn’t want to open it or know any more secrets after this grueling day. I felt the same way the next day and the day after that. I was mourning the loss of something that I never really had except for a few brief months. Peter, with his sixth sense when it came to me, demanded to know why I lacked my usual swagger and energy.</p>
<p>“What’s with you, Neal? You look like you lost your best friend or somebody kicked your dog.”</p>
<p>I glance up sharply at his face to see if I detect a double entendre, but it’s just Peter being Peter. “I can’t always be ‘on,’ Peter, not even for you,” I snap. “Sometimes, my biorhythms just take a nosedive, so cut me a break!”</p>
<p>“Hey, Buddy, tone it down,” he warns me with a frown. “Get over your little snit and don’t give me attitude. Maybe you ought to review mortgage fraud for a while until you pull yourself out of your slump.”</p>
<p>“Whatever,” I mumble like a petulant teenager. I don’t have to look up to see my handler’s glare because I can almost feel the daggers raining down on my head. After he saunters away, I try to understand my emotions. I have suffered loss in the past. Getting over Kate’s death had been monumentally hard, but those first few days in the aftermath had been spent in a prison cell, and you couldn’t display weakness while surrounded by hungry jackals. And then I remember dear Ellen, mown down on the street because of me. I would probably never get over that guilt if I lived to be a hundred. I need to get a grip now because the world keeps turning whether we want it to or not.</p>
<p>That night in my loft, the box remains like a waiting talisman. I can’t ignore its presence but I can’t bring myself to open what I believe might be a Pandora’s box. If I unleash what’s inside, I may never get everything back inside again. I decide to wait until the weekend, and then I’ll ‘cowboy up,’ to use a Peterism.</p>
<p>~~~~~~~~~~</p>
<p>Okay, so now I’ve set a goal and I’m going to do it. On Saturday afternoon, I cut through the string, carefully unwrap the brown paper and lift the lid of the box. I am perplexed to find what appears to be a computer printout of a manuscript. The stack of sheets are simply bound together in a plastic portfolio-type affair probably purchased at a generic office supply store. When I open to the first page, I believe what I have in my hands may be some type of, as yet, unpublished first-person novel entitled, <em>“The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.”</em> Maybe this isn’t as bad as I had imagined. I open a bottle of wine and settle back to begin reading.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse</em>
</p><p>By</p><p>The Pale Horse</p><p> </p><p>When I think back to those early days, it is like viewing an old black and white photograph taken with an antique Brownie box camera. The white edges along the periphery of the photo are serrated, as if that touch of class made the subject matter in the picture more refined and genteel. It was, perhaps, a more naïve time in this tiny Midwestern town with homespun values and a working man’s ethic. Mothers stayed home to keep house and fathers went off with lunch pails in their hands to factories or dairy farms. American flags proudly unfurled on porches, and there were parades on the 4<sup>th</sup> of July and Easter egg hunts on wide greens around churches with spires. Now, when I view my childhood, I realize it was like living in a fragile soap bubble.</p><p>A decade later, things were changing, and our little oasis in Middle America was suddenly caught up in a world on the brink of enlightened fervor. When I say “enlightened,” it is a relative term. This was an era still mired down in prejudice and hate, and derogatory and offensive words like Polack, wop, and kike still rained down like sharp pelting hail during a freak thunderstorm. And let us not forget the “n” word that people today dare not utter in polite company. Nobody had yet formed the concept of political correctness or social awareness. Instead, a populace, who once had an almost irrational fear of Communism, was now centered on a tiny divided country in Southeast Asia. Viet Nam changed the tide of what was once a placid ocean.</p><p>I was the child of German immigrants, an older generation that had seen more than their fair share of hardship courtesy of ancestors who perished in the Nazi death camps at Bergen-Belsen. My parents always seemed proud of me and insisted that I study to get good grades. They wanted me to have the education which they lacked, and like a good and obedient son, I applied myself with a vigorous intensity. I also dutifully endured piano lessons, although it quickly became evident that music was not my forte. All this intense “nose to the grindstone” stuff didn’t leave a lot of time for games of stickball or bike riding with friends. If the words, “nerd” or “dweeb,” had been coined back then, they would have been the epithets hurled my way. Actually, when you’re small in stature, introverted, and wear thick glasses, you’re never likely to be chosen to play dodge ball in the school yard. Even girls in their prim little Mary Jane shoes used to snicker behind my back.</p><p>But eventually, the torment abated at bit upon high school graduation. My parents urged me to apply to the local college to avoid the draft. My father had been squirreling away funds each week from his paychecks. He was an accountant with many clients who made the erroneous assumption that all Jews were ‘money men’ with a clever eye for finagling the books. My father was as scrupulously honest as the day is long, but, nonetheless, he made sure he could afford my tuition at the state level, and he urged me to center my higher education on mathematics. But it became clear after only a few weeks into the semester that, just as I had abhorred the tedious scales on the piano keyboard, I equally detested the various courses in trigonometry and calculus. Instead, I gravitated away from numbers to the written word when I fell in love with literature.</p><p>I took every course available in English and American Lit. As the semesters rolled by, I noticed familiar faces seated in the classrooms avidly taking notes and trying their hands at penning essays on existentialism or the influence of the Victorian authors on modern novels. It seemed only natural that four misfits would find each other and form a bond. Just as in high school, we were the odd men out. We didn’t play sports or attend pep rallies. We didn’t go wild at keg parties or frequent frat houses. We were serious scholars far above those frivolous mundane things. We would drink cheap jug wine in our claustrophobic dorm rooms and discuss great wordsmiths like Charles Dickens, Shakespeare, Hemingway, and Steinbeck. We debated and postulated and, of course, feverishly applied our hearts to the written page. By sophomore year, we were inseparable, and the glue that held us together would withstand the test of time far beyond the classroom.</p><p>Finally, we were on the cusp of adulthood, at a threshold that spread out beyond the cosseted walls of the state university. We all promised to keep in touch as we ventured into our unknown futures, and we ultimately decided to form a pact, or maybe it could be deemed a fraternity of high-minded young men. Like every great brotherhood, it needed a name, and the name which would bind us together had to be something spectacular and worthy of our intellectual awareness. After a fair bit of haggling and a nod to the absurd, we became <em>"The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse."</em>  It had an ominous ring to it, having been borrowed from the last book of the Bible called Revelations. If you wanted to get technical, those four nebulous entities emerged at the end of the world and were designated by the colors of their steeds: White for the mystical Holy Spirit, Red for war and bloodshed, Black for famine, and the Pale Horse as a depiction of Death. Those were the more traditional interpretations, but other scholars insisted they stood for righteousness, conflict, justice, and the end of the world, respectively. We chose them for a less erudite reason and that was because of the spectrum of colors.</p><p>The “White Horse” in our group was of Polish descent and his hair was so fair that it was literally white. He was the son of a dairy farmer who had put in 18-hour days to enable his son to get an education to make something of himself in what was our modern-day world.</p><p>The “Red Horse” moniker was a no-brainer for our group. The new owner of that handle had burnished copper hair and a sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of his nose. His family was never sure of his ancestry since he had been adopted from a foster home that didn’t keep very accurate records. Our Red Horse had an overbite and an inferiority complex. When he was growing up, all the other kids used to call him “Howdy Doody,” referring to a wooden marionette from a 1950s era television show.</p><p>Our "Black Horse" readily admitted that he had grown up on the wrong side of the tracks. He had dusky olive skin, dark ebony hair that he let grow long over his ears, and a formidable attitude. What he didn’t have was a father. Those details were always hazy, but he had an explosive Sicilian type temperament, if I was any judge of character. He was attending college on a scholarship based on economic need, and that added to the chip on his shoulder.</p><p>Of course, I was the "Pale Horse," for obvious reasons, as well. My Germanic ancestry was pure and I had the fair complexion and light blue eyes envisioned by Herr Hitler as one of his master race specimens. However, I was far from the Übermensch depicted by robust, tall soldiers of the Third Reich. I was small, frail, and prone to bouts of colitis when I became stressed. I caught every cold within a foot of me, which always seemed to morph into bronchitis and chest-wracking spasms. In college, I always had my inhaler in my pocket.</p><p>So, this nomenclature of ours was more of a practical application rather than a philosophical one, but it worked for us. After the basics were ironed out in our fraternity of four, we next formulated our mission statement—a lofty set of ideals for the future as we sashayed forth to make our marks in the world. I can’t quite remember who suggested the means of sustaining the bond, but with the recent advent of the glorious Internet, it was an enticing possibility.</p><p>Perhaps it was the quiet, introspective White Horse, or maybe it was the Red one who came up with a clever way to keep us connected in a rather technical but appropriate way. We each vowed that one day we would pen the next great American novel—not about alien invasions or bodice ripping bedroom tales, but something gripping and relevant in a world that was becoming more violent and hostile. It would be a tall mountain to climb for any one of us, so the White Horse suggested that perhaps this quest should be a team effort. He had some ideas, so he would begin the novel with a lengthy first chapter, then he would pass it on the Red Horse to move the action forward. It would then be passed down the line, chapter upon chapter, until we all agreed that it had accomplished our goal.</p><p>So, in the months and then years that followed, four friends would depart on journeys that took us far and wide, but with the keys on a computer, we were always in each other’s heads. I stayed on in my hometown, got married, and found a position at the local community college. At first, I was buoyed up by the exuberance of teaching. I wasn’t but a few years older than my students, but we were worlds apart in our outlooks on life. They were merely taking up space to just get by with no firm ideas of where they desired to be in the years down the road. They would take my classes and expect to be spoon-fed the rhetoric and the answers that would be on the tests. Their essays were minefields of grammatical and spelling errors. In the four years that I held out, there wasn’t one free-thinker or bright bulb in the box. Maybe I was an elitist or maybe I was a fool, but it seemed as if we were dumbing down the educational system and turning out graduates holding a diploma but without the properly schooled basics.</p><p>I am the first to admit that I don’t have all the answers and I make my fair share of mistakes. My quick marriage was a mistake. She was an uncomplicated girl who’s dream was to complete her courses in a vocational program to become a hairstylist. While I wanted to discuss a Faulkner  novel, she wanted to discuss Cosmopolitan’s newest fashions. I think we were both relieved when we decided to call it quits. She married a nice young plumber after our parting and, in a short time, presented him with three children. I envied her those offspring, something I would never come to have. Eventually, I cut my ties with a sleepy, out-of-step borough and set my sights higher. I would travel east and aim for the brightest star of them all.</p><p>The White Horse came east as well, but he was moving his mother, father, and his patient wife a bit farther south. The family had relatives living in Baltimore, a city divided into little ethnic enclaves. A shy college graduate from the Midwest couldn’t find a position in academia in his new world, so he settled on working in the family-owned bakery. He lived in a row home with white marble steps next to his kin, and he scrimped and saved and let his older brother talk him into investing with a stock broker. That was the modern way to build a future in an economy that was on the upswing.</p><p>The Red Horse went in the opposite direction to make his home in Silicon Valley, getting educated in the new, exciting world of high tech. Out of all of us, he had the most logical and discerning eye for new innovative ideas on the ethereal plane provided by computers. I often wondered why he had mired himself down in stodgy and plodding literature for so long.</p><p>The Black Horse couldn’t seem to find his niche after college, so he played to his strengths and enlisted in the Army. He would be deployed all over the globe during his career and we all worried about his continued safety.</p><p>The years would roll by faster than any of us anticipated, but we honored our pact and kept our virtual novel alive. Sometimes, it would be months before a chapter was completed and passed on to the next author in the queue. That wasn’t unusual because we were all living our lives in the real world. The Black Horse, in particular, would be out of touch for long spans of time. There weren’t readily available laptops on the road to Bagdad or the mountains of Tora Bora in Afghanistan. Sometimes, we would suffer from writers block or paint ourselves into a literary corner. When that happened, we all conferred and decided to scrap that attempt and begin anew.</p><p>Nevertheless, we kept at it. The genesis of this great American novel was arcing over decades, but not one of us complained or suggested that we cease our efforts. I think it was just an excuse to sustain a feeling of belonging that had been born decades ago on a lonely college campus. I never told my old friends of my future success as a novelist. What I was producing for the mass market was not truly great literature, by any stretch of the imagination. I would have been embarrassed if they knew I was Derrick Stevens, who created formulaic action-filled pages with heroes using high-tech gadgets to rid the world of spies or members of a New World Order. Those potboilers were no great tomes like “Ulysses” or “A Farewell To Arms.” There wasn’t a profound epiphany found in the whole bunch. My success was purely accidental and the result at having been shown the door by a pompous gasbag at Hudson College. Those old feelings of being an outsider because I was not one of the good old college chums who summered in the Hamptons grated on me. Dean Emberton was a pretentious snob and he was as insultingly hurtful as any of the kids who had once called me a Yid, a wimp, or a fucktard.</p><p>Well, there you have all the background material you’ll need to visualize our little clan, who’s members were to become antiheros in this new century. Maybe what came next was probably not out of the realm of belief because each of us had been beaten down in different ways. As had been our nature, we had never fought back, never drew a line in the sand, never said enough was enough. We just took the disrespect and slunk away with our pride in tatters. Perhaps twenty-five years of hard-fought maturity made us realize it was time to give up the pipedream and change the agenda and the ground rules.</p><p>The Red Horse made the initial suggestion after mysteriously asking each of us to contact him though a coffeehouse computer or one at a public library. When we typed in a certain web address, he proficiently rerouted us through an encrypted series of channels that meandered around the world before connecting us to him. To a man, we were intrigued and more than anxious to find out what our technical genius had up his sleeve. When we eventually heard his plan, we were initially dumbstruck, but the longer we thought about it, the more it started to become fascinating like a psychedelic trip on acid. It was so huge and so out of character that it had a certain allure. Some of us had little to lose and yet so much satisfaction to gain by going rogue—and if we carried out the new plan, we would definitely be going far off the reservation.</p><p>The Red Horse was a true genius when it came to computers. A lot of his knowledge was learned on the fly at various tech schools from California to Seattle, but most of what he had mastered was self-taught. His mind simply worked differently than the average person’s. When he got started talking about his passion, it was like he was speaking in tongues. Of course, there are always temptations in life that started with a forbidden apple in the Garden of Eden. The Red Horse tried his hand at venturing into places where he shouldn’t have gone—the heavily guarded sites of big corporations, government facilities, and even the military. He never harbored any malicious intent. He just wanted to prove that he could do it, and it became a little hobby of taking brief excursions where the common man couldn’t enter.</p><p>The Red Horse knew he was good at his craft, and he tried to parlay that into a dream job. He contacted the most elite branches of our country’s intelligence agencies that were most often referred to with acronyms. He even approached a new department called Homeland Security after September of 2001 and magnanimously offered his phenomenal expertise to protect the United States from threats both here and abroad. He had cut his hair, invested in a good suit, and bought an expensive leather attaché case for the brief interviews, but one by one, doors were slammed in his face because he hadn’t gone to MIT or Stanford or cut his teeth at Microsoft. After suffering months of disrespect, he grew angry and bitter and sought out others who would see his potential and make use of it. It didn’t take long before he was doing hacking for governments he had once wanted to thwart in their desire to disrupt America. It paid very well, but that wasn’t the point. The crux of the problem was that the Red Horse couldn’t let go of his wrath, and he needed an escape valve to release the scalding steam. What better way to vent it than in a book we would be writing.</p><p>In 2015, the Red Horse proposed that we begin a new contemporary literary attempt—a novella of just four chapters, and it would be The Four Horsemen’s last endeavor. He would start the first pages in what should have been, but never was, our great American novel. Even though his protagonist was fictional, the character he invented was going to carry through with a plot that was close to Red Horse’s heart. He would show everybody what a genius hacker could do when poked with a stick, and it would be true shock and awe. When our old college comrade forwarded each of us a copy of his intended work to peruse, we really didn’t know if he was serious. He assured us that he was, and he gave us an address on the Dark Web where he promised to post his chapter just minutes before the deed played out. I don’t think any of us thought he would actually carry through with this unbelievable action until we heard the news about the air traffic control malfunction at National Airport. In The Red Horse’s mind, the passengers on those planes that crashed were just collateral damage in his war of retribution.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>The "Pale Horse's" novella continues in the next chapter.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Our literary efforts lay fallow for almost two years after that mind-boggling experience. I don’t know how the others of our group felt, but I vacillated between morbid fascination and grudging admiration. For the first time, an underdog had bared his teeth and snapped at those who taunted him. We never discussed the incident between us. It was as if we didn’t acknowledge it, then it really never happened. But then, in 2017, another of the downtrodden poked his head up above the ground. I was a bit surprised because it was the most placid of our clique, the White Horse. But then the White Horse’s epithet was righteousness, and righteous justice was exactly what he wanted.</p>
<p>Of course, all of us were well aware that life hadn’t been good to our friend. After moving his family to Baltimore, he and his older brother tediously awoke each morning at 4 am to arrive at their bakery and begin rolling dough for their yeast breads. By the 1990s, the Highlandtown area of Baltimore City was beginning to decline with gangs roaming the streets and drug buys happening on corners. Most of the old customers were moving away to safer enclaves.</p>
<p>One morning, the White Horse’s brother suffered a massive stroke which left him totally incapacitated. By this time, my friend had a beloved son who took up the slack. We were all shocked to learn that this young man became a victim of a robbery. He was gunned down by two tweakers who snagged $90 from the bakery till. Our White Horse was bereft. He had been saving for years for this son’s future, a future that was worth less than a C-note to the marauders.</p>
<p>The White Horse’s wife went into a deep depression and he knew he had to do something. So, he put his row home up for sale and took advantage of the sub-prime banks loans that were readily available to high-risk borrowers. He purchased a small rancher with a considerable mortgage in a suburban area just outside the Baltimore Beltway. He certainly didn’t see himself as a dicey borrower. He had a solid stock portfolio that was performing quite nicely, and he was frugal to a fault. He was contemplating applying for a small business loan to relocate the bakery as well, but couldn’t quite manage it at the time because he was paying exorbitant monthly fees to keep his aged mother in a nursing home after she developed Alzheimer’s Disease. Adding to that was the monthly expenditure for his diabetic wife’s insulin. When I heard of his difficulties, I sent him a few checks, as did the Red Horse, but they went uncashed. Our old friend from college was a proud man and didn’t want charity, not even from us.  </p>
<p>In 2008, the housing market imploded and the bubble burst. The stock market crashed with the Dow plummeting 777 points in one day. Before the White Horse could catch his breath, he was upside down on his mortgage and eventually had to default on the loan because his once robust portfolio had evaporated in the blink of an eye. Of course, he complained bitterly to his money manager at the still prestigious investment firm. Why hadn’t the broker seen the looming thunderclouds on the horizon and advised him to sell his endangered stocks? Although the culprit in this scenario still retained his lofty position in the well-known nationally-acclaimed financial corporation, he stopped taking White Horse’s calls. Now, almost a decade later, our angry comrade was determined to refocus the man’s attention.</p>
<p>In 2017, after his wife’s death from diabetic complications, a fulminating rage had awakened a sleeping dragon. The White Horse had sent a group email to us with a precise outline that would continue the plot in our dark novella. Although he could visualize the endgame, he admitted to ignorance on the technical side. The Black Horse was quick to reply to that email. “I’ve got your back, Bro!” was his succinct promise, and a few weeks later a former military man with demolitions training was headed up Interstate 95 from Georgia with everything he would need in his car trunk.</p>
<p>The pipe bombs loaded with shrapnel and C4 were built in the White Horse’s basement. The Black Horse dropped them off at a Fed Ex box on his way back home, and the Red Horse uploaded the now completed chapter to the Dark Web exactly five minutes before the explosions were remotely detonated allowing the White Horse’s righteous revenge to unfold.</p>
<p>The die had now been cast and there was no turning back. We were all either killers or complicit accomplices abetting murders on a grand scale. There was no spinning that scenario any other way. After the bombing, a vindictive blood lust seemed to have surfaced in the Black Horse as well, most likely fostered by profound PTSD from his days in the Middle East where he witnessed horrific inhumane acts by terrorists. His military service ended when he became unstable and was given a medical discharge. The Army dumped him in Atlanta, Georgia after he mustered out, and he frequently saw very unhelpful and less than sympathetic doctors at the local Veteran’s Administration Hospital. Finally, he just stopped going because he told us it was like spinning your wheels in the sands of an Afghan desert. He finally got his act together just enough to labor away as a mechanic in a used car dealership that was really a cover for a chop shop. He had no family or friends—just us, his pen pals and co-authors.</p>
<p>The Black Horse didn’t waste a lot of time advancing the plot of our literary project. He sent us the next chapter just nine months later and it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. He was determined to play out our fictional protagonist’s agenda by having him walk into the VA Hospital and take out the administrators with an M16 assault rifle. I was a coward and didn’t speak up, but the White Horse had reservations and worried that his friend would eventually become a suspect when the investigation commenced. Instead, the White Horse offered a unique solution.</p>
<p>He urged us all to consider rereading a 1950s psychological thriller written by Patricia Highsmith called <em>“Strangers on a Train.”  </em>It would later be adapted to a movie format with the same name by Alfred Hitchcock. To give a brief synopsis of the plot, two men, who are strangers, meet on a train and both admit to having problematic people in their lives. They commiserate over their troubles until they hit on a unique solution. They agree to “trade” murders, each killing the other’s nemesis. It gives each man a perfect alibi and they can’t be tied to the slain victim because they have no conceivable connection to them.</p>
<p>“I owe you so I’ll take out all the bastards who disrespected and dismissed you, time after time,” the White Horse promised his friend. “If you can get the weapon and teach me how to use it, I can do the deed while you make sure to have a solid alibi with lots of witnesses to corroborate it. When it’s over, I’ll get out of town and you’re golden.”</p>
<p>And that’s exactly how it all went down five minutes after the Red Horse uploaded the next chapter on the Dark Web. The White Horse didn’t flinch as he emptied the rifle’s magazine into the offices of people wearing officious suits and wingtip shoes. He then turned and walked slowly out of the building and drove his stolen grey van away to a Walmart parking lot. He pulled off his black watch cap and dark wig, then carefully removed his fake beard. Everything was stowed in a trash bag and placed in a dumpster. Within minutes, an older white-haired gentleman in a wool cardigan sweater pulled out of the lot in his blue Honda sedan and headed north back to Baltimore. On the way, the rifle would be tossed into the Potomac River in Virginia, and the latex gloves would find their way into a landfill in Annapolis.</p>
<p>After that penultimate chapter, I knew it fell to me, the Pale Horse, to finish the story. The onus was on my shoulders to pick the final victim or victims. I think there’s something in a Jew’s DNA which makes him a pacifist by nature. Instead of being the abuser, we are usually the abused, and we suck it up and just keep going. Now that behavior was destined to change. I don’t consider myself to have enemies; instead I call them irritants, and the primary one who immediately came to mind was George Emberton from my short-lived career at Hudson College.</p>
<p>I had lied to that FBI Agent who first came to question me after everything went down at the Anniversary Gala. Teaching Literature and Creative Writing to bright young minds in a prestigious bastion of higher learning was like finding the Holy Grail. I loved soaking up my students’ youthful yet mature enthusiasm. They possessed fresh innovative passions ignited after years of private schooling, which actually enabled them to think independently and express their ideas intelligently. I could bump things up a notch and offer them challenges to meet without any whining or grumbling. They wanted to learn from me and I wanted to teach them. It didn’t matter that other members of the faculty shunned my company or failed to invite me to their country clubs for a round of golf or a set of tennis. My students were eager for my attention, and my private conference hours were always filled with a waiting list. Those short four years passed in the blink of an eye and I thought there would be many more to come. However, I was in for a rude awakening.</p>
<p>At the end of winter break, George Emberton had finally won the brass ring when he was handed the keys to the kingdom. He was to become the Dean of Hudson College, and he vowed that, through reorganization, implementation, and academic growth, his new domain would become even more remarkably impressive. To begin the process, he requested a sit-down with me. Just to be clear, I was the one sitting down and he was the one standing at the window indolently gazing at the beautifully manicured lawn. In a few succinct words I was told I was receiving my walking papers. To say I felt blindsided would be an understatement. I demanded to know why.</p>
<p>“Surely, Alfred,” he began arrogantly, “you must have realized you were just an available place-holder with a limited tenure. When we initially took you on, three of Hudson’s professors were out on sabbatical and another on extended maternity leave. Now our tight-knit little family is all back together again and that’s how it should be. It’s all about tradition and continuity here at the school. I’ll make sure you get a glowing reference to anywhere you apply. If you’ve taught at Hudson, that provides a lot of clout on your resume.”</p>
<p>Well, of course, this was a blow to my pride and my ego. I hadn’t been asked to leave because I was a poor teacher. Instead, I was asked to clear the premises because of my poor pedigree that wasn’t quite blue enough.</p>
<p>Now, decades later, through a convoluted yet bizarre twist of irony, I was going to be dismissing him and probably many of his snobbish cronies. It seemed appropriate that a man so immersed in wealth and stature would meet his end with an expensive murder weapon properly adorned with a label designating its exalted lineage. Old George Emberton had probably been very impressed by my gift, at least until the poison caused him a bit of discomfort.</p>
<p>While writing all of my Derrick Stevens novels, I had been quite fussy about being precise and accurate. I traveled to all the cities and countries where the action in the books took place because how else could I write about somewhere if I had never seen it? I also meticulously researched everything, usually by conferring with experts if I couldn’t readily find the answers myself. It wasn’t unusual for me to correspond with scientists and professionals in every field under the sun which included skilled marksmen, martial arts masters, ship captains, race car drivers, meteorologists, psychologists, coroners, and some very esoteric specialists like toxicologists. When I told them that I was doing research for a new book, they were only too happy to oblige Derrick Stevens, the prolific best-selling author. Thus, obtaining the cyanide was easy enough, then it was just a matter of heating a needle and pushing a plunger to arm my weapon of mass destruction. It was fittingly appropriate because I am <em>The Pale Horse</em> who is closing the book on the last chapter. <em>I am Death.</em></p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter 8</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Epilogue – Neal’s Loft</p>
<p>After I finished reading those ominous words in this raw manuscript, I notice the last sheet of paper left in the box contains paragraphs of thin, spidery cursive handwriting. If this is an epilogue, I wonder how much more disturbing it can be than what came in the pages before, especially when this supplement begins with the salutation<em>, Dear Neal.</em> After confessing his sins to me, Alfred has indeed bequeathed a dilemma. I’m not quite sure how else to describe it. Was it a dare, a challenge, or a shared secret that he wants me to bury? I have to continue reading with a morbid sense of curiosity.</p>
<p>~~~~~~~~~~</p>
<p>
  <em>Dear Neal,</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>If you have made it this far, then you now know me for what I am, or perhaps, what I became as I traveled the long tedious path we call life. I’m not going to offer any excuses. I made my choices with a free will, as did my comrades. You have free will, as well, and must decide what the next step should be. You get to finish the novella, Neal, anyway you choose. You can step up and claim accolades for ferreting out a serial killer, or, in this case, a brotherhood of killers. But be aware, my young friend, the FBI will be hard pressed to prove any of our guilt. They could tediously dig through my past and perhaps put names to my friends other than Biblical ones, but proving their suspected crimes would be impossible. Another possibility would be letting this all remain as it appears on the surface, just a sick and delusional old storyteller’s last attempt at a “fictional” literary effort. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>You must be wondering why you have been chosen to bear this burden. As paradoxical as it sounds, I have grown quite fond of you, and you are someone I trust with my truth. I was quite serious when I claimed to love being around intelligent young people as yet unjaded by the foibles and the trials of a life still unfurling at their feet. You have a wonderful mind, and I believe a good soul. Maybe, once upon a time, I could have said the same thing about myself. Regardless of how I veered off that track, I still maintain that we are very much alike—needy and searching for a connection to someone who doesn’t label or judge, but simply accepts what is offered. And, you, my friend, have much to offer. I would have been so proud if you had been my son. If you had been, I truly believe both of our lives would have turned out quite differently. Our recent time together was all too brief. There should have been many more hours of perceptive discussions about the mysteries the universe offers as well as the mysteries within us. I’ll just end by saying that you made the twilight of my life so much brighter before it was my time to go.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>~~~~~~~~~~</em>
</p>
<p>I sit in fascination reading the handwritten words, picturing Alfred scratching them out with his favorite old-fashioned Montblanc fountain pen. Was what he had written a deathbed confession, a plea for understanding, or an attempt at a personal connection, as he had alluded to in his postscript? Was he trying to justify a union of homicidal partners in crime, or was he taunting me to become part of the conspiracy? Now he has given me the greatest of all challenges. He’s urging me to look into my soul and decide his legacy.</p>
<p>I pour another glass of wine, as if that will enable me to become wiser and more certain. I picture myself like that iconic statue of Lady Justice, the allegorical personification of morality. She is blindfolded and holding a scale, trying to balance two sides of a dilemma. Well, I’m no longer blind and I know the truth, but I’m trying to weigh both sides of this situation. Alfred is gone, and what he and his old college friends did can’t be undone. But if I make his claims public, three other lives will be exposed but, most likely, suffer no consequences for their past actions. The Horsemen were smart and devilishly clever, and Alfred had been right when he bragged that their culpability could never be proven.</p>
<p>Then I begin to picture Alfred seated in his parlor, small and frail and obviously happy to have me across from him drinking in his knowledge as well as his rare wine. He was the master and I was the pupil hanging on his every word. Now I question why I was so enamored. When I reexamine our odd relationship, I’ll admit that I knew something was off from the very beginning, and like a good con man, I started out pandering to my mark to nudge him in the direction that I wanted him to go. But, Alfred soon turned the tables on me and I was the moth being drawn to a flame. I watched that light flicker and dance, mesmerizing and hypnotic, and I let my own defenses melt away. Alfred knew just the right buttons to push and he read me as easily as I had read his last unpublished manuscript.</p>
<p>But Neal Caffrey is no fool. I always have reasons for the things that I do, or in this case, what I allowed to continue. Now I have to put my finger on the why. Just as Peter had once surmised, every enigma is all about the “why.” It doesn’t take a lot of deep introspection on my part. I had let Alfred be privy to the why of me because he was really the first individual either brave or foolish enough to venture into my depths. No one had ever done that before, not my parents, nor Kate, nor Mozzie, and certainly not Peter. Alfred found me just as interesting and intriguing as I found him, so, in a way, that made us kindred spirits. And, above all, he had granted me the ultimate trust, and I wondered if I could betray him now.</p>
<p>No easy answer is forthcoming today, so I put the manuscript back in the box and tuck it away in one of the secret little pigeon holes in my loft. Although out of sight does not mean out of mind. I ponder the question of how to proceed for the rest of the weekend. On Monday, I boldly accost Peter and ask him a question he obviously hadn’t anticipated.</p>
<p>“What’s the status of that old case we started to investigate—you know, the one about the mass cyanide poisoning that happened at Hudson College some months ago?”</p>
<p>Peter grunted. “Nothing new, I’m afraid. Maybe you didn’t hear, but our person of interest and my prime suspect died just recently. If Bronfein was the mastermind behind that weird story on the Dark Web, maybe it’s over and there won’t be another chapter popping up in a year.”</p>
<p>“Huh,” I say trying for an innocent look. “So, it may be one of those cold cases that we never get to solve.”</p>
<p>Peter shrugged and narrowed his eyes. “I had a gut feeling about that guy, and my gut is never wrong.”</p>
<p>“Never?” I question. “Just to clarify something, what’s your gut feeling about me?” I ask curiously, really wanting to hear his answer.</p>
<p>“Oh, Buddy, don’t even go there. That’s like asking me to figure out David Copperfield and his magic. That’s something I don’t want to touch.”</p>
<p>“So, you really don’t want to make an attempt to look behind the curtain to understand me at all?” I push.</p>
<p>“That would be an exercise in futility, so why even try?” Peter snorts.</p>
<p>“Well, that’s one opinion,” I say softly as I turn away and return to my desk.</p>
<p>~~~~~~~~~~</p>
<p>It takes several weeks for me to come to a decision. Right or wrong, I have chosen a path. It brings to mind an old Robert Frost poem, <em>The Road Not Taken</em>. Alfred and I had parsed that work one night and both agreed it was the lament of a man grown old and belatedly regretting his choices, which determined his ultimate lot in life.</p>
<p>“That’s what a lot of people do, Neal,” Alfred had said softly. “They perseverate on the past and either flog themselves with it or use it like a protective shield from the consequences of their actions. I think people have to stop making excuses and just get on with things.”</p>
<p>I remember smiling. “That attitude may put a lot of psychiatrists out of business.”</p>
<p>“Really, Neal, don’t you believe that sentient human beings should be able to do self-introspection all on their own?” the wise old man replied in a melancholy tone. “Perhaps most individuals just need someone to remind them of who they are and say it’s okay to be them. It’s all about validation.”</p>
<p>I replay that conversation over and over in my mind. Perhaps Alfred, although now long gone, still needed to be validated. On Friday, at the end of a grueling workweek at the Bureau, I dress in black jeans and a turtleneck, and shrug into a black leather jacket. It is now late fall and the nights are tending to be cold. I make my way Uptown to that staid wine emporium where Peter had taken exception with the proprietor’s haughty demeanor. The snobbish man is there tonight about to close up, but I step inside and give him a charming grin. He doesn’t seem to remember me without my three-piece suit and fedora, and he’s ready to give me the brush off when I tell him what I wish to purchase. He takes in my attire and seems leery, but then he reasons I could be someone’s valet just running an errand for my employer. I have cash in my hand, so he acquiesces and fetches an expensive bottle of French wine, not exactly in the realm of the Lafite-Rothschild, but close enough. After I pay, he wants to put my purchase in an elegant wine carrier with a handle. I tell him that all I will need is a paper sack, and please, could he be kind enough to remove the cork. He gives me a quizzical look, but does as I ask.</p>
<p>After leaving the bewildered man, I make one more stop at a mundane liquor store and buy some domestic wine—a few bottles with screw tops that amount to less than $50. Of course, they go into paper bags as well. Now I’m ready for the final leg of my journey. I make my way downtown because I have a destination in mind. Manhattan has it’s glitz and glamor, but it has its seedy side as well. I know one underpass that is a popular gathering spot for the homeless and the downtrodden. They are squatting there tonight, just like always. While the traffic whizzes above their heads, they sit stoically enduring the night around old trash cans containing the castoff debris of blasé litterers set ablaze to ward off the chill.  </p>
<p>I saunter up to a trio and offer them the sacks of wine. They regard me suspiciously, but I hold up my own bag and smile, “Why don’t we kick back and relax together, my friends. I am a storyteller and I have a tantalizing tale to share if you want to listen.”</p>
<p>That gets me a milkcrate to use as a seat by the fire. Just as I promised, I began telling the fictional account of the Four Horsemen while sipping my French vintage and they chug their cheap domestic stuff. As I completed each page in the novella, I tossed it into the fire and watched it crackle and burn. My audience was less than attentive. Most had dozed off before I was halfway finished. But it didn’t really matter. A secret tale had been told, a man had achieved validation, and I had added the final chapter to close the book forever.  </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thanks to everybody who managed to hang in and continue reading chapter after chapter. Many of you may not like my ending, but in this story, it is what it is.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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